Laser guides have been widely used, as optical fiber components for transmitting laser beams with high energy density, for machining equipment, etc.
PATENT DOCUMENT 1 describes such a laser guide configured so that an optical fiber for a laser guide is coaxially joined at least one end with a cylindrical block-like chip (rod) having a greater diameter than the optical fiber.
However, for the laser guide described in PATENT DOCUMENT 1, the area of an end face of the optical fiber is significantly different from that of an end face of the block-like chip, and thus the optical fiber and the block-like chip have drastically different heat capacities. This makes it difficult to fuse the optical fiber and the block-like chip together using electric discharge, a burner, etc. Therefore, the laser guide has poor workability, resulting in low productivity.
PATENT DOCUMENT 1: U.S. Pat. No. 5,619,602